A question we are exploring in the News and Religion class I am taking right now is, “Can you have religious freedom without freedom of speech and press? Why or why not?” On the simplest level, the answer would seem pretty obvious: religious freedom requires freedom of speech since part of many religious practices include speaking. To the extent that one’s religion calls one to speak out against injustice and work for reconciliation, a free press may also be required, or at least a free religious press.

On another level, the answer might simply be, does anyone really care? The latest research by the Public Religion Research Institute finds a continuing decrease in the number of people identifying as members of organized religion. Discussions about religious freedom end up being about whether a business owner can discriminate against a group of people whose actions he doesn’t approve of or whether religious freedom laws can be used to fight laws that limit the freedom of women.

When we look to the news media, we see similar concerns: the consolidation of major news outlets, the focus on profits instead of seeking truth, and how all of this contributes to the rise of ‘fake’ news. How relevant is religion or the press today? What is the role of the news media covering religion in our secular multicultural digital age?

We must recognize that our religious identity as a nation has shifted over the years. We have never fully lived up to the image of “A City Upon a Hill”, and that image itself, when examined carefully, has its share of negative aspects. Likewise, the fourth estate has not always guided us towards the truth or our better selves.

“an anthology of news stories that illustrates both the role of religion in shaping public opinion and the role of media in spreading religious beliefs and opinions through society and in shaping people’s opinions about religion”.

The editors found themselves “inundated with examples of times when religion made a difference … [and] many interesting examples of news coverage that helped shape public opinion”.

It may feel that there is a paucity of such examples today as Americans drift away from religious organizations and the news media because more driven by profit motives. Yet as is noted in chapter 10 of The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the American News Media edited by Diane Winston, blogging and online religious news coverage has the potential to fill an important role as “a venue for religious news and discourse in the public sphere”.

This leads us back to our starting question about freedom of religion and freedom of the press. While we must keep in mind our individual freedoms, we must also keep in mind the constant reshaping of our cultural history and identity. Religion and the press have worked together to constantly draw us back to public discourse, actions, and relationship with the divine for the welfare of our nation. The freedoms of both are deeply interconnected.

We started off reading a brief history of journalism in the United States and then read some of what was written in the press in the 1700s about the Small Pox vaccine from a religious perspective. I was interested to think about the discussions about vaccines back then and contrast it to discussions today about vaccines. I was disappointed to read about the opposition to the vaccine by Colonial Anglican clergy.

We also read two chapters from The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the American News Media edited by Diane Winston. Specifically, we read about the development of the religious news beat and organizations that supported it during the 1930s to 1960s. We also read about more recent religious bloggers and online coverage.

It has caused me to stop and look a little more closely at what is currently written about religion. The Public Religion Research Institute recently published its latest research,
America’s Changing Religious Identity, with key findings like, “White Christians now account for fewer than half of the public” and “White evangelical Protestants are in decline—along with white mainline Protestants and white Catholics”.

It is an idea that Steve Bannon suggested is driving the Catholic Bishops response to the Trump administration’s efforts to end DACA: Catholics “need illegal aliens to fill the churches”.

‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Perhaps also, some of this comes back to the stories of individuals struggling through their own vulnerabilities as a sign of God’s enduring love for us. I’ve always like the phrase the Episcopalians use, “Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.” I remember hearing a priest talk about how when Jesus appeared to the disciples after the resurrection, they recognized Him by His wounds. They knew Jesus by his brokenness, his vulnerability.

As an Episcopalian, I identify as being part of “resurrection people”. There is a future for Christianity. There is a future for religious news writers. There is a future for my own journey and my own writing. I hope to get a clearer sense of that through the Religion and News Media course I am taking as well as the other courses I am and will be taking in seminary and what I am reading online. I hope you will come along with me.

One of the themes of the 2016 Trinity Institute conference, Sacred Conversations for Racial Justice was the idea of Counter Narrative. It is an idea that people talk about, in certain circles, but perhaps do not do enough to foster. There is the official narrative, the stories we learn in school or read in the mainstream media; the stories of America as uninhabited or inhabited by barbarians, when Westerners came, the stories of Westerners being welcomed at a great first Thanksgiving meal, the stories of southern plantation life which overlooks the suffering of slaves, the stories of a city on a hill and manifest destiny. A good way to understand the problems of this is by listening to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk, The Danger of a Single Story.

The dominant narrative of the day seems to be one of consumerism, where what matters is getting whatever you can for yourself, and the rest be damned. It is a narrative based on fear; sending troops and building bigger walls. It is a narrative where all people are not created equal, let alone created in the image of God Some of seen as more or less deserving than others, perhaps because of their skin color, the location they were born, or how wealthy their family was when they were born.

I thought of this when I listened to a book on tape by Barbara Kingsolver where she said that $100 is spent every year for every person on the planet, trying to get them to buy more stuff. Friday, I heard Dr. Gail C. Christopher of the W.K. Kellogg foundation say, at a forum on health equity and access, talking about what you see on television and movies, “We are entertained these days by the destruction of life".

The master narrative is about consumerism and inequality, it is about the loss of creativity and spirituality. People talk about counter narratives at conferences. Perhaps they tell some of the other sides of the story, like those talking about the Middle Passage are doing. Maybe they are telling some women’s history, talking about the domestic arts with as much respect as has been shown to the “fine” arts, or highlighting great black and/or women artists and scientists.

Yet what about countering the master narrative in daily life? Today is the last day of National Poetry Month. I set for myself a goal to write a poem a day during the month. When I’ve done this in the past, there have been days that I could find nothing to say, and wrote pieces that weren’t all that great, that were throw aways, just practice pieces. This month I did a little better. I didn’t always get the poem for each day posted on the day I wrote it. Sometimes, I’d let it sit for a day or two before editing and posting, but I did get my thirty poems done. I’ll probably edit my last poem of the month and post it tomorrow.

I’ve also been participating in a Modern Poetry class online. I’ve been reading Frost, Sandberg, and Masters most recently. I’m listening to a book about the transcendentalists in Concord during my commute. Next up is Spoon River Anthology or Big Magic, depending on when I finish the transcendentalist book and when Big Magic becomes available from the library.

All of this shapes into an idea for a counter narrative. Can I write a post, more or less daily, often as poetry, but not necessarily always, that celebrates spirituality and creativity while giving voice to people and things too often overlooked? Can I find others who are willing to write along with me? Can we listen to one another and by listening and writing shift the narratives?

Only when we are eager to love can we see love and goodness in the world around us. We must ourselves remain in peace, and then we will find peace over there. Remain in beauty, and we will honor beauty everywhere.

I guess this is something similar to, you are what you eat. I’ve written about this in the past, Does Facebook Make You Sad? It does seem like these days people seek conflict online.

Google’s US Trends for 2015 says a lot. Paris Under Attack. Adele’s Year. The Oscars. Caitlin Jenner. The 2016 Elections. This is what we searched for in the United States. It is similar in other countries, with Cricket or the Tour de France showing up as top topics.

This evening on Twitter, #OregonUnderAttack has been a hot topic as everyone puts their political spin on the events there.

I’ve tried to keep my focus elsewhere. The Society of Saint John the Evangelist’s word for the day is Rejoice, and they link to a post, Remembering Joy. That post talks about Ecclesia Ministries seeking ‘to take the gifts of church out to people who, for whatever reason, cannot come inside to receive them”.

One of my goals for #DigiWriMo is to be more engaged in other people’s blogs and hopefully to have others more engaged in my blog. Years ago, I used to participate in various blog swaps and I work as a social media manager, so there is nothing really new about this for me.

One person who has been really good at this, at least in the early moments of #DigiWriMo is Sarah Honeychurch. She’s been commenting on my posts, thank you Sarah, and responded to Joanne Fuchs tweet about blogging once a week, “I find having a supportive audience in events like #DigiWriMo helps me.”

So, I went over to Joanne’s blog, where her most recent post was Yes, Virginia. You Can Ask Your Own Questions!. Joanne sounds like the sort of teacher I would want my inquisitive eighth grader to have. Joanne was talking about helping students form questions around “letters from service men from different wars”. It fit nicely with the story I heard Arnie Pritchard tell Friday night about This Business of Fighting based on his father’s letters.

All of this is prologue to the key focus of this evening’s #DigiWriMo post. The other week, my daughter Fiona texted me, letting me know that there was some guy at her school teaching the kids about Internet Safety. Now I want the internet to be safe as much as the next guy, probably more so, since my job is social media manager for a health care organization, but I often find a lot of the internet safety talks, at best, misguided. They focus on online predators and stranger danger, and less on more important issues like cyberbullying or how you can help online friends in times of danger.

Stranger danger: I’ve never met Sarah, Joanne, or Geoffrey face to face. Yet if I ever get a chance to, I will jump at it. They sound like my kind of people. I have met lots of other people face to face after getting to know them first online, including my wife. Knowing how to judge and get to know people that you meet through the media, whether it be online, or any other form of media is an important skill. It applies equally to getting to know authors, musicians, journalists, politicians, and others.

Yes, online predators are a danger, but I believe a greater danger may be accepting uncritically what various media personalities are saying. Learning how to think critically about what we experience through various media can address both of these dangers.

Later this week, I will be speaking at Career Day at my daughter’s junior high school. I will be talking about being a social media manager, and what it takes to do that well. Perhaps key areas I’ll focus on include the value of meeting the right people online, collaborating with them, and how to better judge what we consume online.